Richard Land, the Southern Baptists' ambassador to the very earthly
kingdom of politics and policy (his official title is President of
the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist
Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination) is a
diplomat and an affable character, so when he speaks plainly the words
carry weight. And his salvos launched at Republican front-runner Rudy
Giuliani were the warning shots in the evangelical primary: who has
the strongest claim to the hearts and minds of the G.O.P. base?

Other social conservative leaders have warned that Rudy is soft on
gays, bad on abortion, weak on guns; it's his policies that make them
queasy. His promise to populate the courts with Scalia clones may be
enough to appease some of them. But for Land and those he speaks for, the problem
is personal. A recent New York Times story detailing Giuliani's estrangement from
his children was just the latest reminder of the former New York
mayor's baroque marital history.

"You can't win just with white evangelicals" Land says, "but without
them you face a loss of apocalyptic proportions." And that's the bad
news for Rudy. "The vast majority of those people will not vote for
Rudy. The three marriages is a deal killer." Airbrushing his social
conservative credentials won't help, Land says. "That would be true
of [Former House Speaker Newt] Gingrich as well, who's pro-life. The
vast majority of white evangelicals are not going to vote for man in
his third marriage, who was unfaithful to his wife in previous
marriages." Even if he's running against the candidate conservatives
love to hate? "Even against Hillary," Land says. "They just won't vote
in that race."

To a lesser extent  as in one less marriage  Arizona Senator John
McCain has the divorce problem as well, but that's not the worst of
it, in Land's view. "The problem with McCain, and I don't know how he
fixes it, is that they believe he's pro-life  he cares about the
unborn  but he's so unpredictable. What makes him appealing to
independents makes him worrisome to social conservatives. They say,
'Yeah he's pro-life, but will that have anything to do with who he
nominates to the Supreme Court?' He's very unpredictable, and people
don't like unpredictability in candidates."

Of course the evangelical voters who were baptized into politics in
1976 when one of their own ran for President  that would be Jimmy
Carter  were more than ready to abandon him when he turned out to be,
of all things, a true believing Democrat, in favor of a divorced
Hollywood actor who was elevated to political sainthood. Ronald
Reagan's divorce and estrangement from children were not
disqualifying  adding yet another motive for candidates of both parties to invoke
him as their icon.